


Consequences

by gondalsqueen



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Parents and Children, history repeats itself, if you love them don't let them go while they're standing over a pit, non-graphic depictions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5873713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/pseuds/gondalsqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All parents are terrified that we’ll mess up, that we’ll shape our children’s lives with the echoes of our own tragedies. But Leia is so careful to keep the knowledge of her past from Ben that she fails to keep him from reenacting that past. </p><p>Leia remembers the Death Star.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for fairly non-graphic description of torture.

She never talks to Ben about the Death Star. He _knows_ about it, because Threepio makes sure he’s well-versed in galactic history. And he knows his family’s role, because so many people on Coruscant pursue celebrities with recording devices and bright lights and nosy questions. And she’s talked to him about what happened from a political standpoint. Just…nothing personal.

Never cold metal digging into her wrists. Never her pinned arms and legs, unable to cover her body. Never that tall, tall black figure and the mechanical, steady breathing. Never needles, never bruises, never electrical burns. Never the inexplicable ability to hold her own mind (at least her mind) inviolate, despite his probing.

Never what happens when you resist someone so much bigger than you. Never kicking a half meter off the floor, held in an invisible, choking grip. Or how her hair had come loose on one side and coiled down her back, how Vader had dropped her abruptly just as the sparkles at the edge of her vision had started to go dark, cutting the torture session short.

Never watching the literal end of the world. Never Alderaan ripped off of her and crushed out. Never those hours when the screaming in her head ended and she had to figure out what to do next.

He’s so sensitive. Everything upsets him. And he loves her with such intensity and worries just as fiercely.  “What if something bad happens to you while I’m sleeping, Mama?” Someday he’s going to have to grow a thicker skin, sure. But there’s no reason to hurt him with _this_. She flat-out lies about the scars.

If he’d been a girl, things might have gone differently. Maybe she would have felt a need to confide in him for his own protection. But in hindsight, Ben had needed this information to protect himself, too. If he’d known, if he’d had to wrestle with this, he would have chosen different mentors to ward himself against those fears. (“What if something bad happens to you while I’m at school, Mama?”)

By the time the holos reach them, Ben in a flashy black uniform, his face obscured by the black metal mask, his voice undoubtedly altered, the first pain of loss has faded to numbed waiting. Han can’t let go of the anger, and he actually yells, “He’s doing this on purpose to shove it in our faces!” He still thinks that everything Ben does revolves around him.

But Leia knows the truth. She knows she should have taught him about consequences.


End file.
